[Discussion] On the Gods and the World, Ch. VIII

[sdi]

Happy Wednesday! and to those who celebrate them, a happy belated solstice and early merry Christmas. Let's pick the puzzle-box back up and continue this second third of Sallustius, shall we?

VIII. On Mind and Soul, and that the latter is immortal.

There is a certain force,* less primary than Being but more primary than the Soul, which draws its existence from Being and completes the Soul as the Sun completes the eyes. Of Souls some are rational and immortal, some irrational and mortal. The former are derived from the first Gods, the latter from the secondary.

First, we must consider what soul is. It is, then, that by which the animate differs from the inanimate. The difference lies in motion, sensation, imagination, intelligence.† Soul, therefore, when irrational, is the life of sense and imagination; when rational, it is the life which controls sense and imagination and uses reason.

The irrational soul depends on the affections of the body; it feels desire and anger irrationally. The rational soul both, with the help of reason, despises the body, and, fighting against the irrational soul, produces either virtue or vice, according as it is victorious or defeated.

It must be immortal, both because it knows the gods (and nothing mortal knows‡ what is immortal), it looks down upon human affairs as though it stood outside them, and, like an unbodied thing, it is affected in the opposite way to the body. For while the body is young and fine, the soul blunders, but as the body grows old it attains its highest power. Again, every good soul uses mind; but no body can produce mind: for how should that which is without mind produce mind? Again, while Soul uses the body as an instrument, it is not in it; just as the engineer is not in his engines (although many engines move without being touched by any one). And if the Soul is often made to err by the body, that is not surprising. For the arts cannot perform their work when their instruments are spoilt.

* Gilbert Murray notes, "Proclus, Elem. Theol. xx, calls it ἡ νοερὰ φύσις ['he noera physis'], Natura Intellectualis. There are four degrees of existence: lowest of all, Bodies; above that, Soul; above all Souls, this 'Intellectual Nature'; above that, The One."

† Thomas Taylor notes, "In order to understand this distinction properly, it is necessary to observe, that the gnostic powers of the soul are five in number, viz. intellect, cogitation, (διανοια ['dianoia']) opinion, phantasy, sense. Intellect is that power by which we understand simple self-evident truths, called axioms, and are able to pass into contact with ideas themselves. But cogitation is that power which forms and perfects arguments and reasons. Opinion is that which knows the universal in sensible particulars, as that every man is a biped; and the conclusion of cogitation, as that every rational soul is immortal; but it only knows the οτι ['oti'], or that a thing is, but is perfectly ignorant of the διοτι ['dioti'], or why it is. And the phantasy is that power which apprehends things cloathed with figure, and may be called μοζφωτιχη νοησις ['mozphotiche noesis'], a figured intelligence. And, lastly, sense is that power which is distributed about the organs of sensation; which is mingled with passion in its judgement of things, and apprehends that only which falls upon, and agitates it externally. Again, the basis of the rational life is opinion; for the true man, or the rational soul, consists of intellect, cogitation, and opinion; but the summit of the irrational life is the phantasy. And opinion and phantasy are connected with each other; and the irrational is filled with powers from the rational life: so that the fictitious man commences from the phantasy; under which desire, like a many-headed savage beast, and anger, like a raging lion, subsist.

"But of these powers, intellect and sense do not employ a reasoning energy, on account of the acuteness and suddenness of their perceptions. And with respect to cogitation, it either assumes the principles of reasoning from intellect, which principles we call axioms; and in this case it produces demonstrative reasoning, the conclusions of which are always true, on account of the certainty of the axioms from which reason receives its increase: or the same cogitation converts itself to opinion, and deriving its principles from thence, forms dialectic reason, so called from its being employed by men in common discourse with each other; and hence its conclusions are not always true, because opinion is sometimes false: or, in the third place, cogitation conjoins itself with the phantasy, and in consequence of this produces vicious reasoning, which always embraces that which is false."

‡ Murray notes, "i. e. in the full sense of Gnôsis."

Comments

[sdi]

There is a certain force, [...]

I am trying to understand the Venn diagram of the Hypercosmic Gods, here. So from the One emerges Being (which must exist in order to, well, define existence). Then, from the One and Being, there is Mind; and finally, from the One and Being and Mind, there is Soul. That is to say, each is in some sense contained wholly within the preceding one: that all Mind exists, and that all Soul moves at the behest of Mind? (That is, there is no Soul that is not moved by Mind?)

[boccaderlupo]

Trying to understanding the various hypostases that exist between us mortal and The One—for Plotinus I believe there are three (?), for Proclus I think there are many more—is where I start to lose my bearings.

It's not obvious to me where these rather amorphic principles connect with the gods we have from myth, or the Demiurge of Plato. Nor does it seem as though there's complete agreement among Neoplatonists, but I could be wrong on that.

Not the most helpful comment, perhaps, but that's where I am at.

Axé

[sdi]

I was just pondering through the different Hypercosmic Gods through an example, trying to make sense of what it means.

Let's take a dog. A dog, being animate, has a Soul, but it must be an irrational soul, and so it is not immortal. Therefore, when the dog's body dies, it's soul doesn't last forever. Where does it go? Presumably where it came from, which must be the part of Mind corresponding to "dogness" (that is, what is means to be a dog).

This suggests a dumb metaphor to my mind. Mind has within it somewhere a great big bucket of soul labelled "dog." When a dog is born, a ladle is dipped into the bucket and a ladleful of dog-soul is pulled out and "poured" into the dog to animate it. When the dog's body ages and dies, the dog-soul seeps out of it and back into the big bucket. So in that sense the dog-soul is conserved, but isn't immortal—it just returns to the dog-mind.

As for rational souls, since they're immortal, they don't return to a human-mind-bucket, but remain regardless of whether there's a body to animate or not. Presumably, since they need to animate something (since that's what soul does), you get the doctrine of reincarnation neatly falling out of the basic principle of immortality.

At least, I think? This is mostly just thinking out loud...

[temporaryreality]

Well, this time I am so late to respond to this post that you've already got this week's up. For what it's worth, I've got two points to consider on this passage (the second will be embedded further below where I think it's better placed).

I note the opening sentence found in Taylor never finishes its idea:

"But there is a certain power subordinate to essence, but prior to soul; from essence indeed deriving its being, but perfecting soul, in the same manner as the sun perfects corporeal light."

Do the fine commentators here agree with Murray that this is referring to "Intellectual Nature" and do you feel this is an accurate translation of the Greek? I suppose this is what boccaderlupo refers to by "the various hypostases that exist between..."

I'm less than convinced (purely subjectively, from an inner sweep of what "feels right" [so, take that with a salt-lick]) that "intellectual nature" is what's between Being and Soul, but then again, I'm in preschool. It smacks somewhat of human exceptionalism and a failure of imagination to put intellect at the apex. I'm wondering what purpose this "Intellectual Nature" fulfills, and whether it's not far more MORE than what that term implies.

[sdi]

Being, then Mind, then Soul seems to be the traditional reading... Nock's commentary says, "This Mind which perfects our souls is part of the system of Iamblichus, wherein it ranks after Being and before Soul."

For whatever it's worth, it's also crossed my mind as snobbish: of course a philosopher would deify rational Intellect... but why not place Love there, instead? Or Might? (Personally, I was always partial to the Taoist model, which puts Female and Male in the top spot after the ineffable!)

I remind myself that this is just one cosmological model, among many; just like Hesiod makes Eros a primeval, while other authors (Apollonius of Rhodes, Plato, Ovid, Apuleius, etc.) make Him the child of Aphrodite, herself variously sprung from Ouranos or Zeus...

[temporaryreality]

The first alternative I turned to (because it's such the hot dichotomy in our culture) was, "well, couldn't "Heart" be one option? - and this being Eros/Love/ or whatever else the heart (a la Stephen Harrod Buhner's "organ of perception") stands for and is capable of. The Divine Heart? The universe as heart? etc etc

[sdi]

That's reminds me of Empedocles, who said that Love and Strife—the two modes of Heart?—are the two fundamental forces from which all else (including the gods) arise from.

[temporaryreality]

And that circles me around again to the Tao begetting two (neither of which exists without existence of the other). Maybe those are Female and Male, or maybe Attract and Repel (begetting motion by their existence) or maybe... whew the head spins, but happily.

[sdi]

First, we must consider what soul is. [...] The difference lies in motion, sensation, imagination, intelligence.

I'm sure this is an issue with translating from Greek to English, but I would have assumed thinking to be Mind rather than Soul... but I guess it's here being considered a form of motion, which makes sense enough. So then, what is Mind? It must be something inanimate, if it is above Soul... perhaps it is the ideas that one thinks about?

[boccaderlupo]

I would have to dig up the references on this one (may be Plotinus), but there is a certain view where the Demiurge generates Mind (the Forms (?) or Divine Model), which then generates Soul (the World-Soul).

With regard to Soul and motion, I am going to go out on a limb and suggest the word "animation" ("anima" + tion). In this age, the physicalists track things back to purely mechanistic ends (the firing of neurons, et al.), whereas to Sallustius and thinkers in this vein, the physical (the body) requires Soul to give it motion, to animate it. Body does not generate mind (which lies "above"), nor Soul, which uses the body (the physical) as an instrument.

[sdi]

Of Souls some are rational and immortal, some irrational and mortal. The former are derived from the first Gods, the latter from the secondary.

Apuleius—not, it should be noted, a Neoplatonist!—indicates that there is a middle class as well, irrational and immortal, that intermediates between the divine and mortal realms. Such beings clearly don't have a place in Sallustius' scheme, and yet I've experienced them myself! I'm not certain how to reconcile this with Sallustius' logic. Perhaps I'll get there when I begin on Iamblichus...

[boccaderlupo]

In this case, I think may be remarking on the distinction between human beings and animals. That is, the rational faculty we possess enables us to, if we choose the route of Intellect, to raise ourselves above the merely irrational world of sense that otherwise makes up our existence in the physical world. If we choose instead the route of pure sensation and unreason, then we sink back to the level of animals. That's my conjecture, anyway.

Iamblichus does indeed get into the various classes of spiritual beings, but I suspect Sallustius is commenting on something different here.

[sdi]

Ah! I hadn't even considered that possibility. Thinking about it further, that makes sense: humans are said to possess an immortal soul, of course. Thank you!

[temporaryreality]

I wonder if, rather than a differentiation between the myriad beings, this might be referring to the "souls" found in each of us. I came to this because of this phrasing (Taylor), "but the rational soul through the assistance of reason despises the body, and contending with the irrational soul, when it conquers, produces virtue, but when it is conquered, vice."

To me this is less a demarcation between animals and humans, but indicative of what's going on in each individual - the give-and-take between Soul (the higher self?) and Personality (in JMG's terms). The soul, as understood through Sallustius, is immortal and concerns itself with that which is immortal (the Divine), the personality is concerned with the factors and facets of incarnation (the body, the senses, fantasy, etc.).

[sdi]

Nock's commentary, again: "It is not stated here, but it follows from [Ch. X], that reasonable and unreasonable soul exist simultaneously in a man; this is a commonplace of Hellenistic philosophy. In Iamblichus also it is complementary to the general belief in two kinds of soul; so in the Poimandres man is assigned a dual nature. The struggle of the reasonable soul and the unreasonable is again a commonplace."

The Pœmandres is an important Hermetic text. I read it a few years ago, but remember little about it.

I will note that the struggle between one's divine ("good") and mortal ("evil") halves was a big part of my Christian upbringing, too. Personally, I find the whole thing baffling, and it's a significant component of my apostasy.

[temporaryreality]

That's one reason I could not carry on with Christianity as well (though I was never particularly convinced by it, so it wasn't a big step to step away).

Nock's comment, then, does strengthen my willingness to run with the idea.

I am careful to not equate mortal aspects with evil - the mortal and irrational may be self-serving and convinced of its own discreteness and importance, but evil? No, not as we use the word generally. That makes as much sense as saying inhalation (of divinely proffered air) is good and exhalation (of the used-up-ness particular to the individual) is evil. Seems unproductive, and conducive to setting people up for failure when two parts of themselves are pitted against each other.

That the personality needs work, I will not argue, but to judge it as inferior seems ludicrous. It has its limitations, they can be accepted and transformed.

[sdi]

It appears to me here that Sallustius is espousing philosophy in an extreme sense, renouncing the irrational body in order to—assuming I am not being presumptuous—approach and hopefully attain the immortality of the rational soul?

Or is he rather assuming that a soul that is derived from the secondary Gods, being of a different class, to never be able to attain to the status of those that are derived from the primary Gods? (But what, then, do we make of all those myths where Zeus confers immortality upon those He favors?)

Or am I reading way too much into this and Sallustius is only defining an ontology that has nothing at all to do with how one ought to behave?

[sdi]

This question is rendered moot by boccaderlupo's above point.

[boccaderlupo]

Don't take my word as definitive, however! It is interesting to note of the two types of soul that they would seem to "fight." So do we have two souls, then, that conflict? Or is it one soul with two impulses? According to my own view, it would be the latter...

I do think there's something of the "ought" in this one, as Sallustius does reference virtue and vice. And there does seem to be a dualism here, in which the body and the irrational (carnal?) impulses of the soul are deprecated, while the rational soul (the engineer!) tends to use the body as an (imperfect) vehicle.

This all would seem to jibe with Proclus's division of the various aspects of existence, with body (the material part of the cosmos) being at the bottom and the intellect at the top, straining upwards toward celestial things.

[sdi]

Good question. Perhaps it is that we have a primary soul directly from Soul, but since we are cloaked in materiality, it is, in a sense, cloaked a secondary soul from the Cosmic Gods? So in that sense, we're of two natures, one foot in each of the two worlds...